–Calls For More “Controlled” Debate With Bundesbank President

FRANKFURT (MNI) – European Central Bank President Mario Draghi
supports the proposal of Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble
for a “currency commissioner” who would have power to intervene in the
national fiscal policies of European Union member states, the ECB chief
told German magazine Der Spiegel in an interview released over the
weekend.

Schaeuble recently suggested that the authority of the EU’s
Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner be significantly enhanced to
include power over national budgets should they be out of line with
Eurozone fiscal rules.

“I am fully in favour of it. Governments would be wise to seriously
consider it,” Draghi told the magazine. “I firmly believe that in order
to restore confidence in the euro area, countries need to transfer part
of their sovereignty to the European level.”

Ironically, pooling power in Brussels will actually give national
governments more rather than less sovereignty, Draghi argued.

“A lot of governments have yet to realise that they lost their
national sovereignty a long time ago. Because they allowed their debt to
pile up in the past, they now need the goodwill of the financial
markets,” he noted. “That sounds like a paradox, but it is nonetheless
true: it is only once the euro area countries are willing to share
sovereignty at the European level that they will gain sovereignty.”

Prompted to respond to the recent public criticism of ECB policy by
Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, Draghi said that he “would like
certain discussions to proceed in a more controlled way.”

Weidmann, who was the only ECB Governing Council member to oppose
the central bank’s new bond buying program, OMT, has recently been
criticised, even by traditional Bundesbank allies at the central banks
of Luxembourg and The Netherlands, for going public with his criticism.

“Mr Weidmann and I still have a great deal of understanding for one
another. We have the same goal, and our differences of opinion over the
correct instruments are not insurmountable,” Draghi said.

–Frankfurt bureau tel.: +49-69-720 142 Email: jtreeck@mni-new.com

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